Florence: Day 3
by Céleste | June 11, 2015
Today we saw The Birth of Venus, and we birthed some pizza. We also learned how to spot good gelato.
Galleria degli Uffizi
To start the day off, we headed to the other big art gallery in Florence, the Galleria degli Uffizi. This is another place where you should really buy tickets in advance online. While the Academia had David, the big draw at the Uffizi is Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. You know the one.
Yes, that one. It’s really big, and really beautiful. And of course it’s surrounded by people, so you don’t really get to just sit and admire it. My mom and aunt were, as usual, unimpressed. My niece seemed to like it, and could receognize Venus in the many ads throughout Florence. Vincent and I both like seeing such a classic.
Besides Venus, there’s pretty standard art-fare at the Uffizi. I realize that sounds like I’m an uneducated and non-appreciative American, but at this point in the trip, you have to remember we’ve seen approximately one billion museums (give or take). After awhile, all you really remember is how much your feet hurt and whether there were typos on the English write-ups (Oslo history museum, I’m looking at you).
Here’s a sampling of what we felt compelled to take pictures of:
Allo Antico Vinaio
We ate the greatest sandwiches known to humankind. Allo Antico Vinaio is a little sandwich shop in Florence that has two locations right across the street from each other, plus a sit-down restaurant attached. Vincent had found it on TripAdvisor and it was amazing. When we first arrived, they weren’t open, and didn’t open until noon. So, we decided to walk around and do a little souvenir shopping in the meantime. By the time we returned at noon, a line had started to form out the door.
When you order, you get to choose your meat (pancetta, salami, other assorted Italian meats), and then you can either choose your own toppings, or you can tell the chef to do whatever he wants. They will say “grazie” and then choose the toppings they feel fit best with your meat choice. Honestly, this is the way to go. The chefs know more about what’s going to taste good together, plus they’ll give you some banter while you wait. The guy I had gave me tons of fresh zuccini and a nice pesto sauce for my pancetta. He also made fun of me for ordering Italian “bacon,” saying I must be expecting American-style bacon. He gave Vincent a spicy sauce for his ham sandwich.
The sandwiches are deceptively huge, and are great leftovers for another meal the next day. Or later the same day, in my case, as a snack. We loved this place so much that we returned again the next day!
Rain at the Piazza de Vecchio
As usual, it rained in the middle of the day. It’s so humid and muggy in Florence that the rain feels wonderful. We hung out at the Piazza de Vecchio, under an overhang with tons of statues. That seemed to be the place to be to hide from the rain.
Florence Town Gelato and Pizza-Making Class
The last part of the day consisted of a pizza and gelato making class. It was a package from the Florence Town company, which does guided tours and classes. This was probably the one activity, throughout the entire time that my family was with us, that every single person enjoyed. It was kind of astounding.
We started out making pizza, by pouring all the ingredients onto our table, and then making a little bowl out of them. Then we poured water into the bowl, and eventually we mixed everything into a dough. We kneaded it and set it out to rise. Don’t worry, even if you’re not a cook, the teachers help you throughout, and they are very understanding when you feel like an idiot. They also provide chianti, which makes the whole experience a lot less nerve-wracking. My sister and I drank kind of a lot of the wine. I’m not sorry, it’s Italy!
Everyone’s pizza turned out great! The teachers didn’t allow us to each make our own gelato, because it would have taken forever, but they talked us through the process as the kids in the class added the ingredients. My niece, at age six, was the youngest in the room, and got to add some ingredients with the big kids!
The gelato was amazing. It was made with a gelato machine, which makes me want to purchase a gelato machine. The teachers also taught us how to spot a good gelato shop, rather than the inauthentic ones, which are abundant in Florence (we called them “shitlato”). Good gelato doesn’t have bright colors; for example, real pistacchio gelato is not green, it’s brown. Good gelato doesn’t come over the top of the container, because it would melt if it were too high. If it’s high over the container, it probably has a lot of preservatives in it to keep it solid. In fact, a lot of good gelato shops will keep the gelato under a cover, so you can’t even see it.
After the class, we got certificates saying we graduated and are now pizza and gelato masters! We headed home, commenting on the various gelato shops we passed. We stopped to listen to a band play some music in the square, and my sister and I danced like fools (see: the chianti, above).
At the end of the trip, everyone agreed that this was our favorite day.
